


Time Will Take Its Toll on Any Story

by orphan_account



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-09
Updated: 2009-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months after he becomes a widower, General Hammond asks Walter to have dinner with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Will Take Its Toll on Any Story

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a Dub Miller song.

It was six months after Hammond's wife passed away. A good, reasonable amount of time. His son and daughter-in-law tried to set him up with a widow from their church, but he demurred. He sought out Walter.

"Sir?" Walter's eyebrows shot up in alarm. "What's this about?"

"It's not **about** anything, Walter. It's just dinner." He took a deep breath, trying to quell his anxiety. When he first started thinking about it, he thought maybe frat regs had been made for situations like this one, that maybe Walter had spent so many years doing what Hammond told him that he wouldn't be able to turn it off.

He'd thought about it a long time and decided _no, Walter's a smart guy_. But it was only Tuesday. There was plenty of time left to thrust back into self-doubt before Saturday night.

But it turned out Walter **was** a smart guy. By time they met at the restaurant (the Bennigan's on North Rock Road), sat down, ordered drinks (Sprite for Walter, Diet Coke for him) he seemed to know the score.

Hammond couldn't believe, in retrospect, that he'd been nervous about making conversation. They talked all the time at work. But life at the SGC being what it was, their conversations were usually just two questions deep:

Greeting.

Greeting. Question.

Answer. Question.

Answer.

Then back to the crisis at hand. So what he knew about Walter was oddly patchy: he knew his nieces played soccer, but not their names; he knew Walter was from a military family, but where he was from. So they talked about all those things.

It turned out they both read Popular Mechanics, but Walter didn't golf and Hammond hadn't been bowling in a long time. (He could go again, but Walter seemed pretty serious about it, so he wasn't sure. Also, he wasn't sure if he was supposed to plan the next date or not, or if Walter was supposed to.) Walter tried to explain Dungeons and Dragons in a way that Hammond could understand, but it was mostly unsuccessful.

He had a hamburger with french fries and a pickle spear; Hammond had the meatloaf. They had enough to talk about that they sipped their drinks a long time after the waitress took their plates away.

After they split the check, Hammond's wasn't sure whether what he felt when Walter invited him back to his place was excitement, relief, or panic, but he was glad they took separate cars so he had a minute to catch his breath.

He was just about ready to call Walter's cell phone with an excuse when they pulled up in front of spare but well-kept little bungalow. By then, he knew it was panic.

But thank God, they got right to it. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep it together if they had to talk some more, or watch TV, or drink a couple beers. Luckily, Walter moved forward with the quiet, understated competence that characterized everything else the general had seen him do. Hammond was pretty sure it went well--at least, it went well by the most obvious standard. Walter seemed pleased, and that was all he was really worried about anyway.

By time he was sitting in his car the SGC parking lot Monday morning, hand on the door handle--he'd already cycled through at least six rotations of excitement, self-doubt, optimism, and fear of getting caught.

But by time he managed to get out of the car, it was all but canceled out by the realization that he was really looking forward to seeing Walter first thing when he got in, and more than that, the realization that he'd been looking forward to it for years.


End file.
